Recommended Posts

Malechai 112

Just to clarify - I'm not talking about the per-user lock screen picture. I'm talking about the lock screen for the default user. aka the one that is displayed if all user accounts on the PC are signed out.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Malechai 112

I scanned through the registry for LockScreen and found a path that points to

C:\programdata\microsoft\windows\systemdata\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly\

Not sure if the S part is different for different PCs. Anyways, in that theres 2 folders called LockScreen_U and LockScreen_Z.

In LockScreen_U, it has the pic I've selected for the lockscreen on my user account

In LockScreen_Z, it has the pic related to the default user lockscreen (the seattle one) - the file is called LockScreen__1024_0768.jpg

to look at any of this, I had to force ownership of the folders and files.

I'm working in a virtual machine right now to figure this out so I'm going to start with just replacing that jpg to see if that works. I'm holding out hope theres a much more simple way (like changing a path in the registry to a different .jpg file)

It appears Windows automatically resizes and names the picture based on your PC resolution. (thus the 1024x768 in the filename for my virtual image)

Whatever pic you want to use would need to be previously sized to match your resolution for it to look right. Just make sure the new pic has the correct filename that you have that location.

I don't really like this solution since, like i said, I had to force ownership just to get at the location. It does work though. I'm hoping someone else discovers a more elegant solution rather than my current brute force method.

Lo Tec - I'm not savvy enough with batch files to know how to do it that way as I believe it would need to use command line entries to force ownership.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Mainer82 40

That didn't work for me, instead what happens is the screen is all blue. I suppose that's better than the ugly Seattle image but I'd like to be able to brand that locked screen with our company logo. I think for now, I'll disabe the lock screen via group policy.

Edit: I wonder if this is due to being on a domain? I'll have to try it while not joined to a domain.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

cluberti 8

cluberti 8

It's easier to just change the file out from the original .WIM file before you install, but once you've installed this is where the file lives (and it's not easy to get to, as you found out, as Windows has really locked down those locations). Until someone writes a tool to do this automatically (Microsoft or otherwise), this is the way. I generally recommend changing the files out on the original source install.wim file, of course, as it's a heck of a lot easier (although you still need to take permission of the folder itself).

If you use dism to mount the WIM file, the files are located in <mount dir>\Windows\Web\Screen, and named img100.png - img105.png. Obviously, whatever is named img100.png gets to be the default lock screen when you install Windows from this WIM.